As a European it just seems weird that sometimes the heritage that is a few generations old is pulled out of thin air in order to give some meaning in the moder

As a European it just seems weird that sometimes the heritage that is a few generations old is pulled out of thin air in order to give some meaning in the modern day. If your family migrated to the US in the 1800s, you ain’t German, Irish or French no more. Yes, we have the same heritage, but the fork happened so long ago, that you cannot relate to the experience of something that happened later in Europe or elsewhere. Similarly how I cannot go to some German-heritage community in the US and relate to everything they lived through.